Forests and Land Management

Deforestation is a major man-made source of greenhouse gas emissions, and is especially significant in countries with large tropical forests. CFR hosted a workshop designed to draw lessons from Brazil’s recent success at limiting deforestation, understand why countries such as Indonesia have so far struggled, and identify ways to further reduce deforestation.

Since 1988, Brazilians have cleared more than 153,000 square miles of Amazonian rain forest, devastating the environment and driving global climate change forward ever faster. Recently, however, Brazil has changed its course, reducing the rate of deforestation by 83 percent since 2004. At the same time, it has become a test case for a controversial international climate-change prevention strategy that places a monetary value on the carbon stored in forests.

Renewing America

This in-depth study of twelve producer, processing and consumer countries demonstrates that actions taken by governments, civil society and the private sector over the last ten years in response to illegal logging and related trade have been extensive and had a considerable impact.

Peru's rainforest may be the next region of major deforestation unless measures are taken to avoid it, says environmental advocate Bruce Cabarle. He notes that a new international agreement on climate change is essential to efforts by countries to combat deforestation.

Agriculture is one of the largest emitters of greenhouse gases. Greenpeace’s new report Cool Farming details the destructive practices resulting from industrial agriculture and presents workable solutions to help reduce its contribution to climate change.

This article tells the story of farmers and herders in Niger who are working together to stop the advance of the Sahara Desert, avoiding conflicts such as the case in Darfur where competition for resources has reached deadly level.

Two years ago the Asian tsunami devastated the Indonesian province of Aceh. A huge amount of rebuilding has been done but thousands of the poorest Acehnese families have yet to be re-housed; the wave washed away their land and also many documents showing who owned land in Aceh. According to this report from the development charity Oxfam the question of who owns what land is now an urgent issue that must be solved if Acehnese society is to be rebuilt on a secure footing.

A report published in Science shows that large wildfire activity increased suddenly and markedly in the mid-1980s, with higher large-wildfire frequency, longer wildfire durations, and longer wildfire seasons. The cause: increasing temperatures and climate change.

An accurate estimate of carbon fluxes associated with tropical deforestation from the last two decades is needed to balance the global carbon budget. In this paper, the various challenges associated with accurately estimating carbon emissions from deforestation is reviewed.

2015 Annual Report

Learn more about CFR’s mission and its work over the past year in the 2015 Annual Report. The Annual Report spotlights new initiatives, high-profile events, and authoritative scholarship from CFR experts, and includes a message from CFR President Richard N. Haass.Read and download »